Josh Waters and McMartin Racing Team take second consecutive ASBK clean sweep at Historic Sydney Motorsport Park night round.

Josh Waters took the McMartin Racing Team Ducati V4R to another clean sweep of the two races at the first ever ASBK Round held under lights at the second round of the championship on the 24-25 March.

The historic event was run on a completely new timetable to a conventional ASBK weekend with practice and qualifying taking place on Friday with the first Superbike race held on Saturday afternoon and the second under lights just after 9pm.

Qualifying was extremely close with the top three positions covered by .050, Josh securing a front row grid position for the two thirteen lap races. Such was the pace of Friday night’s qualifying session that the ten-year-old pole position record was obliterated by the top six riders in the field.

Race one got underway under natural sunlight late on Saturday afternoon in front of a solid crowd with Josh leading through turn one with Pole man Cru Halliday right on his tail. By the completion of lap one Josh’s lead was .355. Despite Josh setting a new lap record of 1:29.001 on lap two Halliday was still less than half a second behind, almost matching Josh and the McMartin Racing Team Ducati V4R’s record pace. Josh reeled off a string of seven laps in a row all under the previous lap record, but Halliday was matching his pace and on lap seven they set identical lap times. Halliday managed to claw back some time on lap nine before Josh responded on lap ten. As the duo hit the brakes for turn two on lap eleven a red flag stopped the race due to Mike Jones bike on fire on the outside of the corner. The race was declared with the McMartin Racing Team rider taking the win, his fourth race win of the 2023 championship.

Rain had been falling as the riders took to the track for race two, the first in ASBK history to be held under lights. The race, despite being declared dry had some damp patches so Josh’s plan was to play it smart over the first few laps. Sitting in fourth as the field got on the brakes at turn two for the first time behind Troy Herfoss, Arthur Sissis and Cru Halliday Josh exited turn three in second behind a clearly fired up Glenn Allerton who had surged through. A few riders ran wide and Josh was soon back to fourth as the field jockeyed for positions early. Herfoss was relegated on the first run down the straight as Josh moved into third 1.7 off the race lead. Herfoss retaliated at the back of the circuit on the next lap, and Josh responded immediately. The lead group had just closed up, six riders covered by .464, as rain started to fall and the race was red flagged.

After a quick change of settings on the Ducati V4R by Crew Chief Adrian Monti race two was restarted over eight laps on wet tyres. Josh again adopting the play it smart approach, happy to sit in the field behind Herfoss, Halliday and Allerton early on. Waters took the McMartin Racing Team Ducati into the lead on lap two before reeling off a string of laps that no one could match, quickly opening a five second advantage by the completion of lap four. The gap grew to 9.6 at the completion of lap seven before easing it off a fraction on the last lap to take the chequered flag with a 6.3 second advantage.

Five from Five.

Josh and the McMartin Racing Team Ducati V4R now lead the ASBK Championship by thirty-five points heading into round three on the 28-30 April. 

“We did a lot of work early in the weekend, even early this morning we were going through information to work out how we could make the bike better” said Josh Waters. “Everyone in the team had input into making the bike better, it was a full team effort that allowed us to challenge in that first race, it was really close, even though it was red flagged I think I had the tools to take the win. Race two the conditions were pretty dodgy, I had to just play it smart and I told Craig that was my plan. I obviously had a good feeling after a couple of laps, and I was able to just keep chipping away. The whole team did an amazing job this weekend, I can’t thank them, or my own personal sponsors, enough for all the support.”

“In both races Josh did an amazing job” commented Team Manager Craig McMartin. “In the first race he was just controlling it, Cru pushed him hard, in fact Josh said to me he was hoping that he would fade a little but he didn’t so Josh had to keep doing amazing lap times, it was just exceptional what both of them did in that race. Race two in the wet was just pure skill from Josh really. We have a setting we can go to that works pretty much anywhere in the wet, a great team effort gave him a good motorbike, but he had to ride it and he was just untouchable, as I said, just pure skill.”